


exhale

by pansysbones (pinklemonadelesbian)



Series: I'm A Lesbian [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Acceptance, Background Lavender Brown/Parvati Patil - Freeform, EWE, F/F, Female-Centric, Gen, Hermione Granger-centric, Internalized Bullshit, Introspection, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Hermione Granger, Lesbian Lavender Brown, Lesbianism, Lesbians helping each other out, Lesbophobia, Self Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 14:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14239557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinklemonadelesbian/pseuds/pansysbones
Summary: aka how  hermione finally learned to just breathe.(no real pairings just some unrequited love. but in the end it's just about self-realization and acceptance.)





	exhale

**Author's Note:**

> this is in celebration of my first ever healthy crush on a woman!!!!!!!!!
> 
>  
> 
> warning: severe SEVERE lesbophobia. no violence but yeah. at one point her father (and hermione, afterwards) call lesbians (butch) "mannish." I just want to make perfectly clear that that's not what I believe. To me butch means: strong. Kind. Handsome. Charming. Warm. Love.

1.

 

It starts when she is seven and her best friend, Bess, kisses her on the cheek and she immediately feels happy, lighter, until Sean Matthews sees them sitting together and his face screws up mean and hard and he spits the word "lesbians!" at them like it's a curse, and even then she knows what that word means; she has heard it whispered in the hallways, heard it bandied around after little Joanne told Darla that she wanted to be her "girlfriend" and Miss Perkins overheard her and told the principal, who called in the girls' mothers and had a Serious Talk with them about the matter. Darla's mother had been righteously angry and more than a little petrified and Joanne's had been furious and apologetic and Joanne had stopped coming to school after that and soon a new family moved into their white a blue house that always reminded of the dollhouse her distant grandmother had bought her.

She did not really like dolls but her mother's sister had winked at her as soon as grandmother turned her back and handed her a stack of first edition Nancy Drew books, and that was much better, so all in all the the day was not a complete waste; of course, not long afterwards her aunt had been estranged from the family, because she had been found with another woman.

She was a lesbian, her father said, in a cool, gruff voice very unlike his regular warm, kind voice, and she couldn't be trusted.

(She didn't think thay was possible at the time, because she had seen them, too, the women called lesbians, always for a split second before her mother turned the t.v. off with a nervous titter. They were strong woman, often broad with square jaws and short hair. They terrified her, and for a long time she didn't know why.

For a long time she thought it was because "mannish", as her father said; later, she realized it was because they weren't. Later she realized it was because she had been drawn to them in that innocent way that children are, because somewhere, deep down, she was like them. But until she realized that it ached and stung; a painful, ugly feeling, twisted up in hatred and anger and fear.)

 

So, to Hermione, this is what lesbian is: ruined woman; wolf in sheep's clothing, danger and self-loathing, ugly and painful.

To a Hermione a lesbian is: a woman that cannot be trusted. An ever-shifting woman, who has lied to you, who is still lying to you, who will always lie to you; who is lying to herself.

To Hermione a lesbian is: a false woman. Mannish. 

To Hermione a lesbian is not: a woman who loves another woman.

 

 

2.

 

 Hermione gets her Hogwarts acceptance letter on a Wednesday and she breathes a sigh of relief because she's certain, absolutely, positively certain that  _this_ is what she's feeling: the divide between her and other girls is not that she likes to hold hands longer--- it's magic. A simple, logical divide between her and the mundane girls. Between her and Bess, who had stopped being her friend in third grade, because she was a  _freak_.

And for a moment, Hermione feels vindictive pride wash through her, and it burns and the dark, terrible, ugly feelings she's been feeling for so long disappear for a moment: cast out by the brightness of her vicous joy.

(But this feeling too is ugly; it's fast and hot and leaves her with ashes in her mouth. She washes her mouth out with soap but the taste stays with her for years.)

 

Diagon Alley is more than she was expecting; Hogwarts is less.

It's not that it isn't beautiful. It's not that magic isn't fascinating and brilliant. It's not that Ron and Harry aren't the best friends she's ever had by a long-shot. It's not that the adventures she has with them aren't exciting, if terrifying.

It's Hermione.

It's the bleak loneliness that devides her from everyone here, too.

Here they hate her because she is a Muggleborn. A Mudblood. Here they hate her because she refuses to keep quiet. Here they hate her because she is Harry's friend.

And here, too, they hate her because of the divide: that ugly, desperate longing. That open, aching wound. 

(She tries to explain it to Harry once, because they are more alike than not; his face twists uncomfortably, then, and he says, "sometimes I feel like there is someone else inside of me," and the feeling she gets when she hears those words is so familiar and raw that she takes pains to never speak of it again.

Later, she wonders of Harry was feeling the Horcrux inside of him; even later she knows he wasn't.)

 

 

3.

 

It's in second year that Lavender becomes best friends with Parvati, and they walk around giggling and holding hands and whispering.

It's in second year that Hermione has a row with Lavender over a pink bow, and after that they stop speaking.

It's not really about the bow, of course.

It's just that whenever Hermione sees the girls holding hands and smiling so brightly, so carefree, her insides twist and writhe like a nest of snakes, and the taste of ash sits heavy on her tongue.

(She convinces herself that this is anger; this is disdain.

Second year is also the year of Gilderoy Lockhart, the most embarrassing crush in the history of crushes.

Hermione manages to convince herself that the two are not at all connected, conveniently forgetting all of the times she loudly talked about Professor Lockhart in front of Brown and Patil, just to prove her point; whatever that point may have been.)

 

 

4.

 

 

Fourth year is the year she has a crush on Ron. It happens like this: she sees the way he looks at Fleur, silver-haired and bright-eyed and tall and stately, and lightning strikes her heart.

She tells herself that it's because she has a crush on Ron, because of course she does because Ron is funny and kind and sweet and brilliant and he's her best friend even if he is insufferable and a bit of a slob.

It makes complete sense to have a crush on him.

(She tells herself that it's not because Fleur is otherworldly and beautiful and fierce and competitive. Because it isn't.

It isn't.)

 

 

5.

 

 

After that it's all strange and hazy. She desperately wants to forget those years, and she does.

(But when she sees Qiu her breath stops. When she sees Luna her head spins. When she sees Marietta shame and anger pinch at her until she feels as if her clothes are three sizes too small.

And when Ginny lays beside her she burns. And when Ginny holds her hand she burns. And when Ginny kisses her, when Ginny kisses her she weeps. And when Ginny pretends it never happened she shrinks into herself. Nobody notices. How can they, when she shuts it all out? It never happened if she doesn't remember it. 

And so she doesn't.)

 

It goes like this until seventh year and the Battle of Hogwarts and the kiss in the midst of it all.

There it ends and begins.

 

 

 

6.

 

The sun is bright, and her bed is empty. 

That's not unusual. Ron doesn't like to cuddle much; she doesn't mind. Something about the whole thing smothers her.

The resignation she feels as she thinks this isn't unfamiliar either.

So it shouldn't hurt, shouldn't ache, shouldn't burn--- but still, there's a part of her that thinks: if Ron can't love me then I am truly a ruined woman.

(She tells Harry all this over lunch; Ron is out with Seamus and Dean, and he won't be back until after dark.

This is normal.

This ok.

Still it burns.

And when Harry stops her halting ramble with a hand over hers, his voice so soft and loving and says: "Hermione, I think it's time for you to let go now. I think it is time for you to breathe," first she weeps long, heavy sobs, and then she smiles.

It's shaky. It's wet. For the first time in a long time, it's real.

And Harry is smiling back, cheeks just as wet as hers.)

(And later when Ron comes home, when she looks him in the eye and says "Ron, I think we need to be friends," every line of him softens, as if he too has just exhaled.)

 

 

1.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly the first girl friend she makes as an adult is Lavender.

Lavender, who is feminine and pink and bubblegum pop and fizzing candy and sparkling lipgloss and Valentine's hearts and everything Hermione has convinced herself she hates in a girl.

Lavender, who is silly and giggly and nauseatingly sweet.

Lavender, who is above all good and brave and strong.

Lavender, who has silver scars that twist at her mouth but smiles brighter than ever.

Lavender, who loves women.

Lavender, who is a lesbian. 

 

They meet at the supermarket and Lavender nods distantly, pausing in shock when Hermione visibly brightens.

"Lavender!" She says excitedly, bouncing on her toes. "Um, you--- you're, would you like, I---" she breaks off, cursing in frustration, and Lavender smiles, a little sharp.

"Come over. Tuesday. Parvati and I are having tea at 1:30." 

Her smile softens then, and she nods again.

"It's good to see you like this, Hermione." 

And after that, Hermione glows.

 

(Later, she realizes she never got their address, and when she asks Ron if wizards have some sort of directory or whatever he shrugs and says "No, but Seamus might know it. I think they're friends, or something."

And the next time Ron goes out with them she tags along, and when she tugs Seamus aside and asks him if he knows where she can find Lavender, he does. Apparently they kept in touch because they're both gay, which Hermione really feels like she should have known but didn't. 

Also, Lavender apparently lives in Hagrid's guestroom, which is a strange thought.

Still, at least she'll get to visit Hagrid as well.)

 

When Hermione steps out of her and Ron's fireplace and into Hagrid's cottage, the tight, knotted feeling in her stomach and throat melts away. 

It's too familiar here for fear to linger. 

Everything down to the placement of the furniture to the scent of pinewood and burnt scones is unchanged, and when her eyesight snaps back into focus she sees Hagrid towering above her, beaming, and she throws her arms around him gladly. 

 

The feeling doesn't leave her when she sits between the two girls, or when she drinks Lavender's red tea, or feeds Fang her rock hard scones.

The feeling doesn't leave when Professor McGonagall ("Call me Minerva, dear, you've certainly earned it") comes in to join Hagrid for a smoke, or when she looks at Hermione with her piercing hawk eyes, or when she nods, a nod of strength and understanding, or when Hagrid asks her how  _Eleanor_ is, and her old professor lights up and she understand that _oh_ , this is _another_ thing I have missed.

It doesn't leave when the charter dies down and she finds herself spilling everything, in short, stuttering sentences, and Hagrid reaches out and holds her hand and says: "I always knew our Hermione was a wonderful girl."

And she knows she is finally standing on sea-worthy legs; she knows that now she can finally breathe. 

 

Now, lesbian is a word that means: holy. Power. Strength. Perseverance. Freedom. A woman who loves women. Beautiful women. Handsome women. Butch, femme, anything and everything. Women that she would die for. Women that will always stand by her.)

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please do comment this is extremely important to me


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